Tagg Romney talks with equal candor about the differences between Campaign ’12 and Campaign ’08. Expect to see more and more of Mitt Romney’s oldest son as a forceful, effective surrogate for his father.

Kevin D. Williamson and I mixed it up over his Repo Man article at NationalReview.com. There is far too much of the Paulanista intimation of “sinister forces at work behind the scenes” for the piece to go unchallenged, and Williamson’s bristling at my Bilderberger characterization marks exactly the sort of reaction of the average Ron Paul supporter called on the average fringy Paul statement. Williamson is not a supporter of Paul and indeed is a critic of some of his rhetoric, but Repo Man is full of the same nonsense that animates the Occupiers and the conspiracists of all sorts. Whenever someone starts talking about “they,” ask for names, numbers and addresses. It is nonsense, and the sort of nonsense that may serve to score some cheap points in a primary campaign against Romney but which undermines the central tenets of free market theory, wherein finance is understood to serve a crucial indeed irreplaceable function. Some people make a lot of money moving money, and more power to them. The spirit of envy that stirs up anger at the success of Wall Street investment bankers is the first step to ruinous overregulation and confiscatory taxation.